All posts tagged PC World

The U.K. government had hoped cooling inflation and a revival in consumer confidence would boost spending, but Christmas sales showed very little pick-up in growth, except online, which proved the saviour for some retailers and the downfall of others.

European Pressphoto Agency

Online sales accounted for up to 20% of total retail spend this Christmas according to e-retail industry body IMRG, and those retailers that have a strong web and mobile presence reported a fillip to generally weak store-based sales.

Sales at Argos, the general merchandise store chain owned by Home Retail Group, returned to growth after several years of decline, the company reported Thursday, as its strong online strategy coincided with rampant demand for consumer electronics, particularly tablets.

Tablets also boosted Curry’s and PC-World owner Dixons Retail which Thursday reported an 8% rise in same-store sales in the U.K. Chief Executive Sebastian James said the retail group sold a tablet every two seconds (during opening hours) in the 12 weeks to Jan. 5., with Apple making up around a third of those sales, while competitors like Samsung Galaxy and Google Nexus gained market share.

While online sales and a well-developed multi-channel offer proved pivotal to Christmas sales growth at retailers like Next, Debenhams, John Lewis, Tesco and J Sainsbury, the dearth of an online presence proved the undoing of others.

We’ve already jettisoned the true spirit of Christmas in favor of materialism and panic buying. Now we don’t even have to spend time with our family and friends on Christmas Day. We can shop for bargains instead.

Back in the day (when Pa had to walk 10 miles in the snow to get to school and Christmas decorations were crocheted by aging relatives) the post Christmas sales started on Boxing Day, or the day after, when bargain-hunters braved city centres and shopping malls at 5am to be the first to bag a musty pair of yuletide socks.

Sure the credit crunch has already forced companies to offer festive sales even before Christmas, but the choicest bargains were always found after the crackers had been pulled. At least we had one day to burn a bird, down a sprout and drink mulled wine in the warm glow of the Queen’s speech, the content of which had already been revealed in all the newspapers. But we watched it anyway.

DSGi, the owner of Currys, PC World and Dixons.co.uk, has announced an intriguing set of interim results – which could augur well for the retail sector as whole today.

Group like-for-like sales – the important industry performance measure which strips out sales from new stores – were down by a disappointing 4% for the 24 weeks to October 17. But, and this is the interesting bit, same-store sales rose by 1% in the last eight weeks of the half. And this indicates that consumer sentiment is improving as we enter the crucial Christmas trading period. [Read the statement.]

Clearly, if this trend continues, retailers could be on track for a much better festive shopping period than many had expected.

Chief executive John Browett reckons the group’s new focus on “an unbeatable combination of value, choice and service” is impressing customers. “Our turnaround is on track and customers are responding well to the significant changes we are making,” he said.

Shares in DSGi are expected to start the day up from 36.57p to between 37.2p to 37.4p and it is likely this upward trend will continue.

Another big story today centres around Ofwat‘s pricing measures for the water companies. [Read on over the jump.]